vegemite's blog

Reflecting as an adult on my childhood, I think my parents had two separate only children rather than two children, siblings. My parents showered us both with a lot of love and attention, meeting all our needs. Certainly that was a fantastic experience but left me unprepared in some ways for the cruel world and independent adulthood, where there is not always someone there to help you and fulfill your wishes. There is an old saying that if you give a child and a pig everything they want, you will end up with a good pig.

What does this have to do with polygamy?

Do we have multiple independent husband and wife relationships, or a sharing, or both?

The two shall become one of Genesis implies a singularity of pairing, exclusive of others. Extending that to polygamy would imply multiple one flesh pairings, each unique in its bonding.

But what of sister wives?

The name itself implies a relationship between wives.

How many women raised in western society really want the sister aspect of polygamy, rather than engaging in a tug of war with the other wives, the objective being to secure the greatest share of the man's time, energy and resources?

Is the maths simply 1+1, and another 1+1, and so on, an additive process?

Or are there synergies, sharings, benefits, where 1+1+1 = more than 3?

In chemical terms, the synergy would be covalent bonding with the women the atoms and the male the electron.

Surely the highest and best form of polygamy is where each person seeks to bring out the best in the others, being true agape.